A number of applications, among which is ground penetrating radar (GPR), generally make use of pulses which are short in duration, especially when targets of interest are electrically small (e.g. anti-personnel landmines). The transmitted pulses should have a simple shape such as a monopulse, a monocycle or their time-derivatives, and their tails should be sufficiently flat to avoid masking of the targets. As high detection rate and low false alarm rate are crucial aspects in GPRs for buried landmine detection, the antenna should be able to radiate efficiently to allow optimal ground penetration. Many GPRs for demining of landmines are designed to be carried by an operator, and hence the antenna system should also be light-weight. Furthermore, demining operations in mine fields can be very expensive because they usually involve vast areas and deployment of many deminers. The GPR should therefore be affordable for such operations and correspondingly low-cost antennas become a necessity. Those mentioned factors are considered as the design criteria for the GPR antenna reported here, i.e., radiating short pulses with a flat tail, possesses good radiation efficiency, light-weight and low-cost.
Author: A.A. Lestari, A.G. Yarovoy, L.P. Ligthart
Pages/Year:
4 /2000
